ShadowDance

Tolkien was a brilliant, educated man. Tolkien fought in one of the most brutal wars in human history. Tolkien had a love of wife and family which could easily be a model to many. Tolkien was an intellectual and moral giant, who kept close company with many of similar talents and moral fiber. Tolkien knew far more about both "grit" and "honor" than Morgan does now or ever will.

Well, I guess it's called fantasy for a reason.

I only wonder why on earth anyone (adult) would want to read something like that.

I think Richard has a valid point, and he certainly walked the walk in THE STEEL REMAINS. But I think a nod to the traditional epic fantasy is in order. This discussion seems to be saying that ultimate good vs. evil is no longer to be desired.
There's also been a lot of discussion (not here yet) about fantasy being serious fiction and shouldn't be seen as escapism. Well, while I was reading fantasy novels to escape my homework from grade 3 on, or currently rereading the whole Jane Austen cannon - I was and am unabashedly doing it to escape. To find a world where good will always triumph and it isn't just a triumph of the 'better fighter' or winning by the skin of their teeth. I enjoy a good Tolkienesque traditional epic fantasy.

The essay seems to be accusing Bach of not being Beethoven. You get out of a piece of art what you're willing to put into it, as an observer, reader, or listener. I know a guy who says, "why should I listen to the Beatles, they stopped making music before I was born." And Shakespeare isn't Harold Pinter. But so what?

Roland wrote:Бе това е хубава гледна точка, но такова фентъзи от една възраст нагоре се чете, поне според мен, по изключение и за разнообразие, освен ако не си някакъв ултра зациклил цитаделец. Аз поне, след като съм чел Ериксън, Мартин или Бакър, по никакъв начин не бих могъл да понеса някоя епична три-пет-десеттомна сага, в която всичко да е черно и бяло и сивичкото да е малко и за цвят.

every now and then you get som eone trying to knock JRRT so they sound hip, and I guess its that time again.

Richard Morgan wrote:Yeah, and every now and then the JRRT fan-base flinch and wince and knee-jerk blindly away from any critical assessment of their hero so they don't have to face the many and manifest flaws in the text, and I guess it's that time again too.

Richard Morgan wrote:Dude - I don't know how many times and ways I have to re-phrase this before I get it across. I haven't attacked or insulted anyone. I've expressed a personal taste, and a comprehension gap.

Look, I loved LoTR at fourteen, liked it a great deal less at seventeen and when I went back to re-read in 2003 (ish) found it irritatingly hard work, with a side order of frustration at the lost potential I mentioned in the essay. I wasn't really surprised by that transition, because I'm a lot different now than I was at fourteen. What does surprise me is that other readers haven't gone through that same transitional process.

But.

This does not pre-suppose some scathing personal judgment of said readers' morals or intelligence. I once met an American in Edinburgh airport who was avidly devouring a fantasy tome by a well known genre author (not Tolkien) whose work I find banal and utterly unreadable. This guy was a postgrad student at St Andrew's University and a black belt plus in Taekwondo, which he also taught; he was educated and well-travelled, thoughtful, witty and fun to talk to. I did not (and stlll do not) understand how he could possibly derive pleasure from what he was reading - but my judgement was of his choice of reading matter, not the kind of human being he was.

(I was also tolerably sure he wouldn't like The Steel Remains - a suspicion I subsequently confirmed when I gave him my laptop and let him read a few pages, and he gave them back, politely non-committal, and went back to his book. No score. But I don't feel the need to make a personal judgment of him as a human being because he didn't like my work, any more than I would because of the book he DID like.)

Here's the inverse example - I'm a huge fan of the video game F.E.A.R. F.E.A.R., despite its beautifully rendered creepiness and its intense gameplay, is pretty much your basic first person horror shooter shock-and-slaughterfest, Various of my acquaintances, including close friends and family, simply cannot see what I get out of playing F.E.A.R., and have said so on numerous occasions. I don't get upset about this (though I will happily proselytise for the game at the drop of a hat) because I don't need everyone else to like it in order for me to like it too.

This is called pluralism. It's also called having a relaxed confidence in your own likes and dislikes. And, as I mentioned in an essay on genre divisions last year, the lack of it is one of the biggest problems we face here in SF&F.

Here's the big warning sign: the wording of someone who posted above and called Tolkien "a revered author"

Whoah, there!

Like an author? Cool. Respect an author - entirely possible, though I think a healthy separation of writer from text starts to be necessary at this point. But - revere an author???? Get out of here! That's not literary taste or critical appreciation. That's religion, man.

I was asked by my publisher to write an essay in support of my entry into the fantasy field. I was asked to pick an area that interested me and keep the word count down. I chose to pick up on why Tolkien fails me as an adult reader, and how that's influenced the fantasy novel I've written. Anyone reading the piece will now have some sense of whether (or not!) it's worth their while picking up The Steel Remains.

And anyone who can't cope with that without suffering a massive emotional response has got some serious issues to work through.